The present disclosure relates to ink jet printing and more particularly to a cleaning device to remove contaminants—i.e., ink and other debris—that accumulate during normal operation at undesirable locations on functional components of a binary array print head.
In the course of operating a binary array continuous ink jet printer, various components at or near the nozzle orifices will become contaminated with ink. Additionally, environmental conditions may also lead to the contamination of various components at or near the nozzle orifices. The current method to clean the contamination from the components is a manual operation requiring hands-on operator intervention. Procedures and work instructions can be defined for printer operators to document the steps necessary to clean the components. These steps usually involve manually rinsing the print head with a solvent wash bottle. However, these procedures not only require operator intervention, but additionally call for the operator to make subjective judgment calls regarding the cleaning time, the precise locations where cleaning fluid is applied, the volume of fluid required to clean, and the time allowed for evaporation or drying of the cleaning fluid. In production environments, particularly where the print head may limit net production throughput by stopping the production line altogether, the operator is often forced to clean and ready the print head as rapidly as is conceivable to ensure production quotas. Hence, operator variability can actually contribute to downtime when and operator fails to perform sufficient cleaning resulting in rework due to failures in the electrical components after restart or the increased frequency of head cleanings during production, i.e., by a factor of two or more.
In addition to the above reasons, there is a significant cost savings potential for end users to be able to reduce the total amount of operator time involved with running a binary array printer.
The ability to reliably and consistently clean the print head using a less arbitrary procedure with little or no user input allow longer and more consistent head cleaning cycles and increased overall production efficiency.